1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a display device, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for controlling a backlight in a display device.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Apparatuses having display devices can be used in environments having various levels of illumination. For example, they can be used in a high-illumination ambient environment, such as an office using fluorescent lamps, a general illumination environment, in which sunlight is used as main light, and in a low-illumination ambient environment, such as a theater.
A backlight is available for a user to more conveniently use an apparatus having a display device under various environments. For example, a Light Emitted Diode (LED) may be mounted as the backlight on a keypad or a display unit of a mobile communication terminal, such as a mobile phone, so that a user can conveniently use the terminal in a dark place.
Power consumption required to operate a backlight in a display panel, e.g., a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel, is about 70% of the total power consumption of the LCD panel.
Power consumption may be reduced by actively controlling the intensity of a backlight according to the brightness of ambient light and power consumption may be reduced by applying a brightness enhancement algorithm to an input image.
However, when the backlight is simply controlled according to the brightness of ambient light, the rate of power consumption varies depending on the brightness of the ambient light. Accordingly, power consumption may still be high under a high-illumination environment, such as an office or the outdoors.
When applying the brightness enhancement algorithm to an input image, power consumption can be reduced irrespective of an ambient illumination environment. However, since power consumption is not controlled adaptively to the ambient illumination environment, an image looks too bright when the environment is dark and looks too dark when the ambient environment is bright.